Sharon, PA

When he was a kid, Dexter Zippay loved airplanes and wanted to learn to fly. While still in high school, he tried to enlist in the U.S. Navy to become a naval aviator. Unfortunately, he couldn’t pass the eye test. His next choice was to become a U.S. Marine. He enlisted shortly after his 17th birthday and went on active duty on October 21, 1946.

He was trained as a forward observer for naval gunfire. His mission would have been to swim from ship to shore, set up an observation post, then call back coordinates to the ship’s gunfire control center. The job was the forerunner of the Navy SEALs. Dex didn’t get to perform that mission because the war had ended before he enlisted.

Nevertheless, after completing training, Dex found himself heading west over the Pacific while most U.S. troops were sailing east toward their homes in the United States. There were other forces going west across the Pacific to occupy Japan, but Dex was not among them. He was headed for China.

At the time of Japan’s surrender, the Marine Corps’ III Amphibious Corps (IIIAC) had been on Guam training for the invasion of Japan. That invasion wasn’t necessary because of the Japanese surrender, but the Marines of the IIIAC were not sent home. Instead, they were sent to north China to accept the surrender of the Japanese troops there and to assist with the process of getting Japanese civilians and military personnel back to Japan.

This was no simple assignment. It involved dealing with the repatriation of more than 650,000 Japanese in the midst of the battles between the Chinese Nationalists of Chaing Kai-shek and the Communists of Mao Tse-tung. The Marines were also called upon to protect trains transporting food and coal to the cities in the area.

The Marines were supposed to avoid engaging either the Nationalists nor the Chinese in combat, but that wasn’t always possible. Dex told his wife, Florine, about one incident he experienced personally. He had built a radio station up in the mountains, and was operating it with one other Marine. One of them would be inside the hut either resting or operating the station while the other kept guard outside with one machine gun. While Dex was inside, he heard the machine gun start firing. Dex went out to see waves of Chinese soldiers attacking the place. Florine doesn’t know how Dex and his friend survived the attack.

Another time some of his friends decided to go hunting, but Dex didn’t go with them. One of the hunting party was killed by the Chinese. Dex was assigned to the detail that went to recover the body. He told Florine that it was a scary experience because they were surrounded by many armed Chinese wearing bandoliers full of ammunition.

“He said he felt like he was in Terry and the Pirates,” Florine said.

Because they were up in the mountains with limited transportation, Dex learned how to ski.

Dex’s commanding officer had the opportunity to recommend one soldier for Officer Candidate School. He selected Dex.

“Dex would have had to sign up for four more years,” Florine said, “but we wanted to get married. He wrote me a letter saying that the Marine Corps would pay my way to join him in China. I said ‘Sure,’ but my father said, ‘Oh no!’ I was too young. He would have had to sign papers for me to go, but he wouldn’t. So Dexter told his commanding officer that he couldn’t accept the offer. His CO got very angry about it.”

Dex’s mother developed some serious health problems, so he was brought back from China. Shortly after he came back, he married his childhood sweetheart, Florine Kornreich. They lived in Quantico, Virginia, until he completed his service on October 20, 1949.

Dex passed away on May 14, 2015. He and Florine had been married for 66 years. On Veterans Day, November 11, 2015, his cremated remains were interred in the Avenue of 444 Flags at America’s Cemetery, Hermitage, PA.

Sharpsville, PA

U.S. Army, World War II

What’s a hero? Don Eichelberger says it’s anyone who just does his job when he’s ordered to do it, and doesn’t crawl down into a hole. But men like Eichelberger always apply that to the guy next to him, never to himself.

During 600 days of combat with the Americal Division in the Pacific, crawling into a hole was rarely an option for Eichelberger, unless it was one occupied by enemy soldiers. Starting on the island of Bougainville, he fought as part of a twelve-man reconnaissance squad responsible for going out in search of enemy units.

During November, 1944, his patrol discovered an enemy encampment early in the morning. They called in an infantry unit, and an entire unit of 23 enemy soldiers were killed without a single American casualty. Everyone who participated in the raid was honored with a Bronze Star. According to the citation, “The courage and jungle craft displayed by all members of the patrol is especially meritorious. The careful preparation, skillful execution, and deadly accuracy of fire constitute a masterpiece of jungle fighting.”

After Bougainville, Eichelberger’s recon squad went out on patrols through the torturous jungles of the Philippine islands of Leyte, Cebu, and Negros, sometimes for as long as twenty days. With feet continuously wet from slogging through the jungle, Eichelberger had to be hospitalized for treatment of ulcers on his ankles. He also contracted malaria.

After Negros was considered clear of enemy soldiers, Eichelberger’s unit started amphibious training for what would have been the most devastating and terrifying beach assault ever: the invasion of Japan itself. He is thankful that the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki made that unnecessary.

Eichelberger spent three months in the occupation of Japan, then returned home.

“My welcoming was walking into the house and being embraced by my parents. I didn’t have any bells ringing or parades and what have you.”

Donald Stephen Mihordin

Greenville, PA

U.S. Army – Vietnam

Donald Stephen Mihordin must have been an optimist. He married Carol Ann Kilgore on September 9, 1967, about a month after he had entered the Army. He had to have known that he would be going to Vietnam.

The 25th Division had operational responsibility for Tay Ninh Province, just north of a portion of Cambodia that protrudes into Vietnam. That area of Cambodia provided a sanctuary in which Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army units could gather supplies and troops to stage attacks into South Vietnam. Until late in the war, they could be certain that the American and South Vietnamese forces would not attack across the border into Cambodia.

Tay Ninh Province was intensely disputed throughout the war, especially after the NVA increased its use as an infiltration route during 1968. The fighting was unrelenting; making any break from it welcome, indeed. In the summer of 1968, Donald was able to go on R&R to Hawaii to visit his wife, Carol Ann.

Shortly after she returned home, she learned that Donald had been killed in action.

On November 26, 1968, Donald’s unit was engaged in a bitter fight about 3 kilometers southeast of Tay Ninh City. Before the day was out, 26 Americans were dead, including eighteen from the 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry. One of those was Sp4 Mihordin from Sharon, mortally wounded in the neck when he triggered a land mine.

Donald never got to see his five-week-old son, Donald.

Donald had been born in Greenville to Mr. & Mrs. Stephen Mihordin. After graduating from Hickory High School in 1965, he attended Youngstown State University until he entered the Army.

He was survived by his parents, his wife Carol Ann, son Donald, sister Charlene, and brother Richard. He was preceded in death by another brother, Jack Mihordin.

Reynolds, PA

U.S. Army – War on Terror

You can find dramatic narratives about the battles that were taking place when certain fallen heroes were mortally wounded. But there are some fallen heroes whose deaths don’t inspire movie producers to base films on their final moments.

One of those is Doug Kashmer, who enlisted in the army after graduating from Reynolds High School in 1996.

Doug wasn’t a combat infantryman who attacked machine gun nests with hand grenades or killed enemy soldiers in hand-to-hand combat. He was a diesel mechanic. In Nippur, Iraq, on June 8, 2005, he was killed when the military wrecker in which he was riding accidentally rolled over. That doesn’t make him less of a hero, because it isn’t in death that one becomes a hero; it is in life. And it isn’t the result of what happens to a person. It is the result of the decisions that person made. A hero is one who is willing to risk his life for his family, his friends, and his country – who is willing to go anywhere and do whatever he is called to do, to the best of his ability, to protect his family, friends, and country.

That’s what makes his death different from the 43,510 traffic fatalities that occurred in the United States during 2005.

Doug was very young when he decided to be a soldier. According to his mother, Carol Kashmer, he liked to play with toy soldiers. He would say, “Mom, I want to be a soldier. That’s been his dream since he was a little boy.”

But it isn’t childhood dreams that make one a hero. A kid has no idea what being a soldier really involves. A hero is one who follows through when he grows up and learns the risks involved, and continues even when life brings more reasons for quitting – such as having a wife and a child. Doug was serving in Mannheim, Germany, before he was deployed to Iraq. His wife, Toni Tennant, and their daughter, Kashmaria, were living with him there.

Before leaving for Iraq, Doug had a picture of Kashmaria tattooed on his leg so she would be with him wherever he went.

Heroism comes from taking that picture with him into harm’s way while leaving the real Kashmaria and his wife in Germany, aware of the fact that they might never see each other again.

Doug Dayton

Sharon, PA

U.S. Army. Vietnam

Fr. Douglas Dayton served in the Episcopal Ministry for 20 years – three years as Assistant Rector at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Sharon, and seventeen as Rector. That’s quite a career, especially considering the fact that he didn’t start studying for the priesthood until he was 43 years old, after completing a twenty-year career in the United States Air Force.

“People who know how much I love the ministry would say to me, ‘I bet you wish that you had gone into the seminary right out of college,” Fr. Dayton says. “But I tell them that those 20 years in the military, particularly my tour in Vietnam, helped me to be a much better priest and pastor.”

After graduating from high school in 1960, he studied at Buffalo State Teachers College, then went on to get a Master of Science in Secondary Education from Fredonia State Teachers College.

That career path took a little twist because of the Vietnam War.

“I got on board with the Air Force’s Officer Training Program,” he said. “I became a 90-Day-Wonder at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.”

His Air Force Specialty was, appropriately, Education and Training. After assignments at Lackland and Hamilton Air Force Bases, he was sent to Nha Trang Airbase in Vietnam as education and training adviser to the Vietnamese Air Force’s 2nd Air Division.

“When I got there, the U.S. 7th Air Force personnel were running the airbase. Our job was to train the Vietnamese to be able to run the airbase by themselves. I was involved in a variety of training programs.”

U.S. advisers worked one-on-one with a Vietnamese counterpart. To be successful, the two had to develop a trusting, friendly relationship.

“My counterpart invited me to his home for dinner once,” Fr. Dayton said. “I tried to eat what I thought I could handle, but he made sure they served some that I could.”

After returning from Vietnam, Major Dayton taught four years at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado, then served at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. Before retiring as a Colonel, he served as Professor of Aerospace Studies for the Air Force ROTC Detachment at Grove City College.

And that left him ready for his career as a pastor and priest.

Fr. Dayton and his wife Kathleen have two adult children, Rachael and Aaron, and four grandchildren: Darius, Lucia, Parker, and Zoe.

Sharon, PA

U.S. Army – World War II

Dr. Benjamin Wood came from a family of physicians, and continued the tradition by producing his own family of physicians – with a twist. All five of his sons became physicians; he and four of them served as physicians in the United States Armed Forces.

For the senior Dr. Wood, it wasn’t a matter of choice. He had earned his medical degree at the University of Pittsburgh, then went to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota for training in pediatrics in 1938. There he met a young lady from South Dakota named LaVaun “Vonnie” Gray. They got married and moved to Cleveland for an internal medicine residency at the Cleveland Clinic.

In the summer of 1941, Dr. Wood got called into the U.S. Army for assignment to North Africa.

“My mother fell apart on the detailer’s desk,” said their son David. “She said I’m all alone in Cleveland and pregnant. You can’t take my husband away from me. The guy shuffled through some papers on his desk and said there was an opening for someone to run a lab in Fort Thomas, Kentucky.”

So Dr. Wood served there until his first son was born. Then he was sent to North Africa. But before he left, Vonnie was pregnant again. This time, however, the pregnancy didn’t stop him from being sent overseas.

In North Africa, Captain Wood served in a mobile army hospital that followed the troops who were chasing Rommel through the desert. After North Africa was secured, he moved with his hospital on up into Sicily.

“Dad had one of those short military jackets,” David said. “It had four hash marks on the sleeve. We asked him what they were for. He said each of them represents six months service overseas. He had wanted to come home earlier, but they told him if he did, he would have to go back and serve even longer. Finally after two years he came home.”

But he wasn’t released from the army at that time. He was sent to San Antonio for tropical medicine training. Fortunately, the war in the Pacific ended before he was deployed there.

He returned to practice pediatrics in Sharon until his death in 1976. All five of his sons – Benjamin, Michael, John, Arthur, and David – are doctors. All but Arthur served in the United States armed forces.

He was survived not only by his wife and sons, but also by fifteen grandchildren and nine grandchildren.

Hermitage, PA

U.S. Navy – Desert Storm era

Dr. David Wood is one of the five sons of Sharon pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Wood. All five are physicians; four of them served in the United States Armed Forces.

When the Vietnam War was in full swing, sons Benjamin and Michael were in Canada – not to avoid the draft, but to attend medical school. While they were there, their draft numbers came up, so when they returned, they went into the army, but as doctors rather than privates.

Benjamin served a year in Long Binh, Vietnam, and completed his two-year obligation at Fort Bragg.

When Michael graduated from medical school in 1970, he went into a program called the Berry Plan, in which he could defer military service until he completed specialty training. He finished orthopedic surgery training at the Mayo Clinic in 1975 and served two years in the army in Heldelberg as an orthopedic surgeon.

John got his medical degree from the University of Virginia. The Air Force paid for two years of his medical school, so he served two years as an ophthalmologist at Wilford Hall in San Antonio.

David graduated from high school in 1977, a year after his father passed away.

“I grew up in a time when people didn’t talk about the military,” David said.

So seeking help from the armed forces to get through medical school wasn’t the first thing that crossed his mind. But it was the second thing.

“We had sort of sticker shock,” he said. When my brother went to medical school in Edmunton, tuition was $500 per year. When Arthur was in Penn State, tuition was $5,000. Six years later my first year’s tuition was $11,000.”

As his brother John had done, David applied for military scholarship programs. He was accepted into the Navy’s program, which paid for four years of medical school. That obligated him to serve four years on active duty, but he was able to defer that until he completed specialist training in ophthalmology.

Then he served four years with the Navy in Corpus Christi, Texas.

“I was of that generation that looked down upon the military,” he said, “but I saw it as a great opportunity to advance my skills as surgeon. I also got a deep respect for why we have a military, why we need a military, and how it works. My experience was very positive. I saw that the military made people better.”

Earl Abbott

Hermitage, PA

US Navy – World War II

“Don’t write about me. Write about the ship.”

That’s what World War II veteran Earl Abbott said when he was asked about his military service.

The ship was the USS Henrico, named after the oldest county in Virginia, was 492-ft long Attack Transport that carried 5,500 tons of cargo, including as many as 28 landing craft, 1500 troops, and assault equipment. There certainly is a lot to write about the service of this truly remarkable ship, from her commissioning in 1943 to her retirement in 1968. However, it’s not possible to write about the ship without telling the stories of men such as Earl Abbott who served as her breath and her heartbeat. Abbott was aboard her only a few of those years, but they were among the most critical.

Abbott was drafted out of high school in March, 1943, to serve in the Navy. After his initial training, he served his whole time aboard the Henrico. He was with her when she participated in the D-Day Normandy invasion and in combat landings in the Pacific.

Barely six months after she was commissioned, she launched twenty-four of the first landing craft to hit Omaha Beach on D-Day during the greatest naval invasion in history.

Earl was Coxswain (driver) of one of those landing craft, loaded with a platoon of soldiers. Many of the craft couldn’t make it all the way to the beach, but Abbott was more fortunate.

“We hit the beach right up on top,” he said. “It was low tide.”

His troops stepped out onto sand, but their fate wasn’t much different from those who had to wade or swim ashore.

“We didn’t know we were going on a suicide mission,” Earl said. “I think the First Division infantry soldiers, who went to hell and back [during the invasions of North Africa and Italy] already knew it.”

So did those who planned the invasion.

“The Coxswains were given a .45 automatic pistol during the invasions. It wasn’t to protect us from the enemy. It was to make sure all the soldiers left the boats at the beach. We never had to use them. That’s the kind of soldiers they were, ready to die if they had to.”

With her troops ashore, the Henrico received casualties from the beach, returning them to southern England later that day. For the next two weeks, she shuttled troops back and forth between England and France.

The USS Henrico

Then she set sail for the Mediterranean. After arriving in Italy, she participated in amphibious rehearsals before landing troops during the invasion of southern France. She supported operations in the Mediterranean for the next three months, then she sailed back to the United States to prepare for combat in the Pacific.

By the end of March, 1945, she was engaged in the landings on Kerama Retto, islands needed as a base of operations to support the invasion of nearby Okinawa. Then, on April 2, the USS Henrico was hit by a Japanese suicide plane carrying two 500-lb. bombs. Forty-nine officers and men died as the entire bridge was blown off the ship.

“I got relieved just before it happened. The guy that relieved me didn’t even know what happened,” Abbott said.

With the ship in flames, and without power to drive the fire fighting equipment, the entire crew put forth a heroic effort to save it.

“We had no water; we couldn’t put the fire out. So we did the best we could. We tried to pump water with hand bilges from the ocean to put the fire out. We got all of the fire extinguishers out of the boats that we could get, and then a destroyer came and helped us with their water. If they hadn’t come, we would have gotten blown up. We were loaded with ammunition, too. And then when the destroyer couldn’t help us anymore, we couldn’t abandon ship because we had no power. We couldn’t lower the boats. So we were drifting all night, and our only chance was for everybody to pitch in, and we put the fire out.”

The Henrico managed to return to Kerama Retto, then sailed to San Francisco under her own power. She arrived there on May 13 and was restored to full service by September. She sailed again with replacement troops to the Philippine Islands. Finally, after having carried troops into the teeth of the enemy, she performed the infinitely more pleasant task of bringing thousands of troops home from the Pacific when the war was over.

Earl Abbott’s military service ended when he was honorably discharged on February 10, 1946. The Henrico’s career, however, continued for another 22 years. She took part in the atomic bomb testing at Bikini Island in 1946 and supported American troops in Tsingtao, China, during 1948-49. During the Korean War, she landed troops at Inchon and provided continuous support of combat operations. She evacuated Nationalist Chinese troops in the Straits of Taiwan in 1954, and supported operations in the Caribbean during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. She sailed her final combat missions during the Vietnam War, landing troops at Da Nang and Chu Lai.

Between all these outstanding accomplishments, the USS Henrico kept U.S. and allied armed forces combat ready by participating in countless training exercises. After her distinguished career, she was decommissioned and placed in reserve on February 14, 1968. She was disposed of in October, 1979.

The USS Henrico was awarded three battle stars for service in World War II, nine for the Korean War, and four for Vietnam – a total of sixteen. Every crew member who manned her during war and peace should be as proud of her as Earl Abbott is – and even prouder of themselves.

Written by Joe Zentis

Greenville

U.S. Army – World War II

For Ed Kochis and his quartermaster unit in North Africa, the major threat to survival wasn’t enemy attack. It was meeting the ordinary needs of everyday life, such as food, water, and shelter.

They had c-rations – at least, when the supply ships weren’t sunk. They had to scrounge food any way they could, and buy it from the locals. One staple was a hard bread that the Arabs soaked in wine.

“We didn’t have any wine,” Kochis said. “We seeped it in onions and water. I went from 225 pounds down to 185. We had one canteen of water a day to bathe and drink.”

For a year and a half, the 76 men in his unit slept in pup tents. Each soldier had a shelter half, so two had to get together to make up a tent. Kochis and his tent mate were both over six feet tall. When it rained, they had to put their duffle bags outside to keep our feet dry.

The unit’s living conditions improved after they moved to Italy, near Foggia. Some of his friends managed to “requisition” cots and some walled tents that could sleep five or six.

The closest Kochis got to the front lines was about ten miles.

“But that was close enough,” he said, “because the ground would shake when big bombs would go off. We had a few bombs dropped near our air field. But we were pretty lucky that way.”

Some of Kochis’s friends were not as lucky. On a day off in Foggia, he went to the movies. “While I was in the movies, I heard this fellow laughing. I said to my buddy who was with me, ‘That sounds like a fellow from Greenville.’ I hollered, ‘Hey, Bill Doyle!’ He said, ‘Who is it?’ I said, ‘Ed Kochis.’

Doyle was a B-17 pilot stationed about ten miles from Kochis. They saw each other a couple of times a week for several months. Then he didn’t show up. He had been fatally shot down over Czechoslovakia.

Kochis’s last few months in the army were nothing like his years overseas. As a PT instructor in Texas, he led calisthenics, played softball twice a day, and had the rest of the day off.

Returning home in 1945, Kochis got a job at the Greenville Motor Club, which became the Mercer County Motor Club. He remained as head of that organization for 41 years.

West Middlesex, PA

U.S. Marine Corps – Korean War

Leadership is a matter of getting your subordinates to want to do what they need to do to accomplish the mission. That happens when you gain their respect by not only to striving to accomplish the mission, but also to look out for their well-being. Emil Koledin was that kind of Marine Corps officer because he was that kind of a man.

He graduated in 1947 from Brown University in Providence with a degree in electrical engineering and a commission in the Marine Corps Reserves. He came back to Sharon to work as an electrical engineer at Sharon Steel. In 1950, he founded his own E. Koledin Electric.

When he was called to active duty in 1951 to serve in the Korean War, he closed up his business. He served as an engineering officer in the 1st Marine Division’s Shore Party Battalion, which was responsible for construction, road building, and other combat engineering functions. He wrote home about how cold it was – sometimes 20 degrees below zero.

After the war, he told his children about how much he loved and respected his fellow soldiers and everyone underneath him. When he had the chance to go to Hawaii on R&R, all of his men wanted him to go, but he would not leave. He insisted on staying with his men.

“That’s how he was his whole life,” said his daughter, Tanya. “It speaks really as to how he was as a man.”

As he sailed back home from Korea in May, 1954, he knew he would have to start up his business again, but didn’t have the capital to do it. So he played poker, and won enough to restart his business.

War on Terror Veterans Memorial

After reestablishing his electrical business, he opened Wesex Corporation as a general construction firm. Since then, Wesex has constructed many commercial buildings throughout the Shenango Valley and beyond. One of his favorite projects was the design and construction of the War on Terror Veterans Memorial in America’s Cemetery (formerly Hillcrest Memorial Park).

His love for his community and his country was expressed through his active involvement on many boards of directors, many civic organizations, and the Republican Party.

Through all this, he raised two families. He and his first wife, Claire, had two daughters, Janice and Kathleen, and one son, Emil (Butch). With his second wife, Kathy, he also had two daughters and a son: Teresa, Tanya, and Greg.

Emil passed away on May 24, 2o1o. He is buried in a place of honor near the War on Terror Veterans Memorial.